


Don't tell me things I already know

by Eldestmiddle



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, Maybe - Freeform, Slightly crack, gen for now - Freeform, so far - Freeform, will add more tags as i go on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:32:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9082456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldestmiddle/pseuds/Eldestmiddle
Summary: Tsuna has always lived every day as though he was about to die.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know, okay? Another one. Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for sad but vague preemie baby problems. it's also probably really inaccurate.

 

Nana does not ask for much from her son because she knows that she is so lucky to even have him. And she means that a lot more literally than most other mothers.

Tsuna was born prematurely at just over 30 weeks and he was _so small_. Nana pumped breast milk and lived at the hospital while the doctors and nurses tried to tell her in as gentle a way as possible to prepare for her Tsu-kun’s passing and _do you want us to contact anybody? where is your husband? you need someone right now._

Her husband is not here and completely unreachable right now.

Nana found a titanium core in herself that she never knew she had. No one was going to hold her up as she cried. Her only family right here, right now, was her Tsu-kun and he was depending on _her_. She refused to fall apart on her baby. She wasn’t just a pampered trophy wife that the neighbors snickered about anymore, she was a mother and she had a job to do.

So Nana spent the next month or so praying to Ojizo-sama in the NICU as her baby struggled to breathe, struggled to fight off infections, and struggled for his right to live. She worked on her stone face as she stood sentinel over the isolette, fists clenched as she wished she could punch the coming death of her baby _in the FUCKING FACE_. On the last day of Tsu-kun’s eighth week, a nurse gently but firmly insisted that Nana leave the hospital to take care of herself. She had been using the hospital showers and eating hospital food and sleeping in a chair that was only outside the NICU as to not be in the way when things turned for the worst with Tsuna, again. The hospital was very lenient with her only because Namimori was such a small town and everyone knew that Iemitsu wasn’t around and she had been thrown out by her parents for marrying a sleazy _gaijin_ who disappeared all the time and probably had a wife overseas. When Nana protested that Tsunayoshi needed her ( _what if he passes while I’m gone? what if my baby dies with no one who loves him beside him?_ ), the nurse looked at her and said, “Your son needs you at your best. Besides, complications aside, he made it to now. So have a little more faith in him.”

Nana finally gave in ( _if he… goes while I’m gone, I’ll blame you for the rest of your life. I know._ ) and went home to wash but before she left, she stood by her son and begged for the first time since his birth. _Please hold on. I need you and love you. There are so many wonderful things in the world yet to see. Not all of life is struggling to live. There is love and adventures and sunsets and dreams and flowers. Living can be beautiful too. I want more for you than to have a life ended so soon. I want you to be able to say I’m so happy to be alive!_

Nana went home ( _Mommy will be back. Mommy will always be right by you_ ) but before she left, a part of her soul reached out and touched his and stoked his dying will to live. No one saw a small flame briefly flicker to life on his forehead but it definitely happened and unlike the metaphorical fallen tree, everyone eventually heard it.

It was a cautious three weeks afterwards, but Tsuna started to slowly get better. _Slowly_ but steadily. He started to nurse which made Nana burst into tears. He started getting chubby and responding to her. Her Tsu-kun always knew her. She could tell the difference in how he responded when he was handled by the nurses though they had handled him more and it was so marked that even they commented on how clever he was to know his mother.

 _I know_ , she crowed. _He’s a miracle and he’s mine._

She started to prepare for his homecoming after the doctors granted her permission to be happy again. She took the infant CPR classes, bought all the preemie care books, reorganized and re-childproofed the house, and allowed herself to really be happy to be alive again. But before she did any of that, she left an offering at every jizo statue in town.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tsuna’s mom is really easygoing compared to other Namimori moms. They worry about their kids’ grades, futures, and social standing. They micromanage their children to prepare for their great destinies.

Sawada Nana just does not care. Whenever people try to insinuate that Tsuna should learn to be more like the other kids and stop wandering off alone to read books to flowers like a complete wierdo, she just laughs it off, “He’s fine. He’s just so happy to be alive!” That wasn’t to say that she didn’t keep a close eye on her child though.

The one time in preschool that Tsuna was teased for having a doctor’s note excusing him from strenuous exercise ( _dame-tsuna! dame-tsuna!_ ) and all the adults stood back shrugging like _kids will be kids, boys shouldn’t cry anyway_ , Nana descended on everybody and roasted them like she was planning on feeding them to her baby. This led to everyone shunning the Sawadas for a good while but Nana shrugged it off and, surprisingly, so did Tsuna.

This was pretty amazing to Takeshi because even as easygoing as he was, he knew isolation was hard. And he wasn’t that brave. And six year old Tsuna gone on with his life like having all of his classmates removed from it made _no difference at all_. It was really cool. It was the coolest.

Takeshi wasn’t that cool.

He was scared that if he talked to Tsuna, no one would talk to him. And if Tsuna didn’t talk to him either, _no one_ would talk to him.

It was the third grade now and Tsuna was still the coolest and Takeshi still wasn’t cool enough to talk to Tsuna.

 

 


	2. a  stupid, stupid fool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iemitsu POV after he finally gets home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the past tense was for the prologue. from now on, that tense will be a thing of the past. chapters will be in the present tense. because

 

When Iemitsu finally left work in December to go home for the birth of his son, he is introduced to an adorable undersized baby and Stoneface-Nana.

“Where were you?”

Ugh, _aaaargh_ , that is almost as bad as _we need to talk_. Actually, it is probably a precursor to _we need to talk_. What to do, what to do. In times of trouble, fall back on _What Would Reborn Do?_

_Fake it ‘til you make it-ssu._

“I was off being a man of the earth, darling! And I see that our little Tsuna-fish came a little early!”

“Oh yes, my Tsu-kun came an _entire three months early_.”

(Iemitsu always forgets that it doesn’t work because he is not, in fact, Reborn)

Oh, uh, that’s bad, right? Babies had to grow up inside their mothers for nine months and three months is third of that growing up time. A lot can happen in three months. Like Stoneface-Nana. And what does she mean _her_ Tsu-kun? It’s their baby! (He later says all this to his subordinates and gets shouted down by all of them as a _FOOL, A STUPID, STUPID FOOL_ )

Luckily, he says none of this to Nana. Unluckily, he does not realize what he really needs to do right now which is grovel and mend his ways.

“Ahahaha, but our little trooper made it, didn’t he! He’s chip off the old block!”

Nana lets him in and he is stupid enough to think that is that.

It really, really isn’t.

It takes a while because he is almost chronically self-centered, but Iemitsu realizes that Nana never leaves him alone with the baby. She is also almost always holding Tsuna-fish. He sneaks in to hold him and, on an impulse, throws him in the air. Tsuna makes a cute squeaking, coughing noise that melts his heart. Then he turns to look into the eyes of Stoneface-Nana and that melts his bowels.

Nana straps little Tsuna-fish to her back ( _ADORABLE! THAT’S SO ADORABLE!_ ) for pretty much the rest of his visit and doesn’t let Iemitsu leave her line of sight. She waves him off back to Italy with Tsuna-fishy peeking over her shoulder. ( _cutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecute_ )

“Answer your phone,” she says with a kiss and a smile.

Iemitsu gets back to CEDEF headquarters and listens to the messages from October and is horrified. But then Enrico gets himself killed and everyone starts scrambling and there is a lot of fingerpointing and the Famiglia needs a stable future so Timoteo starts feeling the pressure and Massimo starts acting up because it looks like Federico is going to be inheriting and just- he doesn’t have enough time. So he calls as often as he can, picks up _all_ the phonecalls he gets, no matter how inconvenient the timing (Nana actually doesn’t call that often anymore, funny that), and sends a lot of jewelry and expensive baby toys.

It doesn’t really fix anything.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell how much i hate iemitsu? i am being really lowkey here but he was a shithead.


End file.
